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Appeal Of An Infamous Rape Conviction In Boston's Supreme Judicial Court

By Altman & Altman

Paul Shanley, 78, (hereinafter, the ?Defendant?) is a defrocked priest who was sentenced in 2005 to 12 to 15 years for raping a 6-year-old boy in a Boston suburb parish in the 1980s. Now, his attorneys are challenging the conviction. Most of the testimony by the complainant against the Defendant was said to be based on previously repressed memories. The Defendant is now challenging the notion of repressed-recovered memories, or dissociative amnesia. During the Defendant?s trial, the then 27-year-old, victim testified that he did not remember the abuse until 2002 when news reports of other men accusing the Defendant of sexual assault. He claimed that it was these accusations that triggered his own memories. The memories included the Defendant pulling him out of Sunday school over a six-year period to rape and grope him in the bathroom, the confessional and the pews...continue to full post

Full post as published by Boston Criminal lawyer Blog on September 21, 2009 (boomark / email).